Thursday, January 3, 2008

Winter Classic - Yankee Stadium

After witnessing the best move the NHL as a league has done in quite some time I must reiterate the necessity of staging such a contest at Yankee Stadium between the Islanders and Rangers. The Stadium has one season of baseball left. After it is completed, sometime hopefully late next October there is no reason that It cannot be ready for hockey on Jan 1, 2009. Imagine this setting...

Sitting in the stands at Yankee stadium bundled up with almost 60,000 screaming hockey fans. Think of the Lets Go Rangers, Lets Go Islanders chants. Its to easy. Its so simple. It is a NO BRAINER. Get the Stienbrenners anything they want to get the deal done and sign me up. There is not one hockey player who watched that game on New Year's Day that did not want to be a part of the event. There is nhot one fan of hockey that watched the game that would not want to be there. The players want it, the fans want it, the league wants it. GET IT DONE!!

The NHL has made history out of making the wrong decisions. Strikes, lockouts, toothless salary caps, inept ownership, inept commissioners, corrupt officials, felonies on ice, misuse of its legends, bonehead rule changes, silly "uniform systems", lack of national coverage, poor marketing of its top stars, failure to market the game to a national audience, failure to do anything to take the brightest stars the game has ever seen and turn that into a successful league like the NBA did with Jordan... OK you get the point. The NHL has finally done something right. the Winter classic was a success on every possible level. the atmosphere was incredible. If they do not make this an annual event they are missing another boat and its biggest opportunity to positively market their game to a national audience since Gretzky retired. This HAS to become a annual event and the Islanders and Rangers is the perfect match up. Yankee Stadium with all of its aura would be the perfect setting. Imagine the last event at The house that Ruth Built is a hockey game between the Islanders and Rangers? Its simply to perfect. Its up to the NHL and the Stienbrenners to get it done. 3 Words, GET IT DONE.